


Dying Softly

by yakman



Category: Pilgrimage (2017)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Brief Mentions of Suicidal Thoughts, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mildly Dubious Consent, like i'm tagging it just in case
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-11
Updated: 2021-02-11
Packaged: 2021-03-17 16:00:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,925
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29353104
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yakman/pseuds/yakman
Summary: David knows he’s not human anymore. He is a tool.
Relationships: Brother Diarmuid/The Mute
Comments: 11
Kudos: 26





	Dying Softly

**Author's Note:**

  * For [elizabethgee](https://archiveofourown.org/users/elizabethgee/gifts).



> this is a belated birthday gift!! i love you friend, happy birthday!
> 
> i don't think there's anything extreme in this story, but just to be safe, please heed the tags.

⁘

David knows he’s not human anymore. He is a tool.

Tools don’t get to decide how they are used. Tools are discarded when they break. Tools don’t have needs, and they certainly don’t have wants—all they require is a little upkeep to make sure they work properly, a place to be stored, and someone to use them.

David is fine with this. He was lucky enough to fall into the right hands.

The monks are kind, and keep up the illusion of his personhood. They allow him to rebuild the old sheep stable that had been damaged in a Norse raid long ago and make it a place of his own; they speak to him like a fellow brother and make sure he is eating enough. They pray for him.

And Diarmuid—

_Diarmuid._

In the spring of his arrival, Diarmuid takes him along the beaches and through the fields and teaches him words, then sentences, in Gaeilge. In the summer, Diarmuid worries over him when his stomach ails from bad shellfish. In the autumn, Diarmuid uses his precious few hours of late afternoon free time to patch a tear in David’s shirt, and by the winter, Diarmuid has somehow figured out David has a taste for the hazelnuts sold to the monastery at a high price by a traveler, and sneaks him one or two from storage every night.

 _Tools do not have wants_. But Diarmuid looks so excited every time he slips a hazelnut into David’s hand, slender fingers pressing into rough palm, that David finds he has no choice but to accept the gifts. And to throw them away would be a waste of Diarmuid’s effort and an insult to his generosity—so every night David eats them raw, and a sour bile of guilt rises in his throat to meet them.

Of course, he says nothing of his thoughts to anyone—he says nothing at all. A silence borne from being a stranger in a foreign land with a foreign tongue becomes a way to hold his shame close, where it can be controlled—where his past can never hurt anyone else. In silence he can’t incur further regrets—and it holds at bay the temptation to _ask_ and _need_ and _want,_ to behave more human than a man like him deserves.

His humanity had been abandoned on some blood-soaked shore a thousand sunsets away, and it doesn’t matter anymore because he’ll never get it back—so the best he can do is carry himself in some familiar shape, form an identity others will recognize.

And _tool_ is better than _monster_.

⁘

Diarmuid doesn’t know his name.

But when he gasps against David’s ear, clutches his shoulders and rocks against him, he swears he can almost hear it forming at the edge of the cut-off sound.

He is meant to be used and should not even have a name. There is a certain peace in the anonymity of the title the monks have given him— _Mute_.

Still, when Diarmuid straddles his waist, his robes bunching up around his knees and thighs, he can’t help but almost hear it in every sound the young monk makes— _David, David, David_.

Training from his life before and penance in his life after has given him great control over his actions and even greater control over his voice—but his mind will never fully be his. In his mind are the last remnants of humanity—the worst parts, the dark and the primal and the violent—and they betray him.

Some parts of his body, too, forsake. He cannot stop himself from growing hard from the friction and the little sounds Diarmuid makes; all he can do is close his eyes, lean his head back against the tree he’s sat against and pray for forgiveness.

He cannot fathom why Diarmuid wants— _him_. Diarmuid is so kind and gentle and caring in ways David could never be capable. Diarmuid is so good and he is… not. Diarmuid is holy and David is already damned.

Maybe it doesn’t have much to do with David—in fact, he doubts it. Diarmuid is younger and curiouser, after all, and David has proven himself to be loyal and useful. This is about what Diarmuid wants, and David is merely fortunate enough to oblige. After all, his body isn’t really his. He gave up his right to it when he used it to commit the worst of atrocities, to defile the bodies of countless others. It should belong to someone far more worthy than him—and in moments like this, it belongs to Diarmuid.

⁘

The first of these moments had been only a few weeks ago. He and Diarmuid had been sent to collect kindling—the land surrounding the monastery was mostly open hills and barren shores, so they had to walk a ways to a woodland that would leave enough fallen branches and dried bracken. Diarmuid had wandered ahead, as he tended to do, talking the whole way about some scripture-related disagreement he and Brother Cathal had gotten into.

“And I asked how it could possibly be fair that those who have never even heard of God be judged the same way as those who have heard and reject Him, and Brother Cathal said he ought to box my ears right there—can you imagine Brother _Cathal_ getting so worked up? I thought it was kind of funny—”

A twig snapped somewhere behind them. David looked sharply over his shoulder—the rest of the world fell away as his senses narrowed in on the direction of the sound; he was only vaguely aware of Diarmuid’s story trailing off, replaced with a question of concern.

The undergrowth rustled, and David moved without thinking—dropped the basket he was carrying and in a few long, backwards steps met Diarmuid, grabbed him firmly but also _carefully_ by the shoulder and guided him behind himself.

Diarmuid placed a hand on his upper arm. “What—”

A streak of orange shot from the underbrush and down the hill—Diarmuid’s fingers dug into David’s sleeve in surprise—and the red fox was gone as quickly as it came.

“You scared me.” Diarmuid let out a breathless laugh, but it was another beat before the tension left David’s shoulders. The instinct to fight, to defend, seeped from his upper body down to his feet, leaving him feeling heavy and—hollow.

He turned to Diarmuid, apologetic, only to realize how tightly he still gripped Diarmuid’s shoulder, the dark fabric of his robes pulled taut under large fingers. Diarmuid was also incredibly close—less than a step away from bumping David’s chest. Diarmuid’s hand hadn’t left his arm.

He made brief eye contact, but the wide-eyed gaze he was met with had _something_ underneath it, and David had to look away before he let himself identify it, drown himself in it. He started to pull his hand back; Diarmuid’s hand that wasn’t holding tight to his arm flew to stop him. David’s eyes snapped to the touch. There was dirt under Diarmuid’s nails from his work, skin pale against David’s own, fingers barely able to stretch over all the knuckles, and David’s chest constricted at the sight.

The silence stretched between them; eventually, David loosened his grip, but Diarmuid’s hand never left his.

“Can I…” Diarmuid’s question was quiet and unfinished, and though David had no idea what he was trying to ask—the monk himself seemed so uncertain—he nodded, curt and only once, without hesitation. The answer would always be yes.

So they stood there in the clearing, hidden only by distance and a sparse ringing of half-bare trees, while Diarmuid pushed up David’s shirt—of all the things he could have done—and traced the lines of his stomach with tentative fingers.

His touches were soft and curious and unsure, and David felt like they sapped the strength from his bones, the air from his lungs, the beat from his heart. He couldn’t think—couldn’t breathe. Because this was Diarmuid, and Diarmuid—Diarmuid—

“You’re so strong,” Diarmuid murmured. He pushed the shirt up to David’s collarbone—hesitated. “Can I—I mean, is it alright to take it off?”

And of course, David nodded. Of course—because this was Diarmuid. This was not about how David felt, not about the fact that Diarmuid’s touch, chilled by the autumn air, sent shivers up his spine that he dare not justify. It was not about the fact that having Diarmuid so close pushed the air out of David’s tired lungs, that his fingers skimming across the valleys of his chest made his heart stutter like a broken windmill finally repaired.

This was not about David. Because tools did not have wants.

His shirt came off, bent the grass beneath it when it fell. Diarmuid’s hands flattened against his chest. He looked—enthralled. He skimmed his palms down David’s sides, and David fought to keep his breath steady.

“Do you…” Diarmuid’s fingers settled on his hips, curled nervously. It was too much—too close—and just when David thought he would break, push Diarmuid’s hands away and implore him not to torture him any longer, the touch disappeared and Diarmuid’s fingers began to toy shyly with the collar of his scapular.

“I mean… should I—as well?”

That was how it started.

⁘

Sometimes he thinks he has always been a tool. In the war he was a weapon; his skills had been feared and coveted and put to use without regard for him—for David.

“I wish I knew who you were,” Diarmuid murmurs one early evening, in David’s lap in their secret place beneath a tree, the sun setting over his shoulder and their foreheads pressed together.

 _No, you don’t,_ David thinks.

Diarmuid ruts against him, and makes the most delicate, needy sounds, like he _needs_ David, needs him right where he is, as he is, what he is—object or monster or person, he _needs_ and he _needs_ and he—

Diarmuid freezes against him, presses a broken cry into David’s shoulder. Fire roars low in David’s gut, and a rough, smoky sound threatens to rise from his chest—and the heat of Diarmuid pressing close is so great that for a moment he can’t feel, can’t think, can’t breathe.

When Diarmuid pulls back his eyes are misted, lashes dewy, and it’s only then that David realizes how tightly he grips Diarmuid’s narrow hips, digging through the thick fabric of his robes as though it were nothing.

His chest heaves, with a sudden and overwhelming panic—he pulls his hands back as though he had been burned, and cups Diarmuid’s cheek with one hand and brushes tears from under his eyes with the other. Diarmuid, still breathless, leans into the touch, and David tries to pull away again.

“I’m alright,” he assures—places a hand over David’s and laces their fingers together in a way that is all too tender.

In the distance, the prayer bell rings, low and foreboding. David barely hears it over the blood roaring in his ears—lingering lust desperately chased away by panic at the sight of tears—but Diarmuid turns toward it, lips pressing into a thin line. He sighs through his nose.

“I—” he looks back at David and turns a bit sheepish. “I’ll find you later.”

He smiles then, soft and flushed and radiant, and David removes his hands so as not to sully it, to avoid accidentally touching the divine. Diarmuid’s fingers cling to his for as long as possible, but once they finally break he leans in—hovers for a moment—then presses a kiss to the corner of David’s mouth.

He stands like a fawn learning to walk—laughs a little and uses David’s shoulder for balance. His hand sweeps up into David’s hair for the faintest moment—a moment where heaven meets hell and David feels so light he just wishes he would die—and then he leaves David in the grass to rot.

⁘

Settling into his new role is—a struggle.

It’s not a struggle because it’s difficult—though it’s torture—nor is it unwelcome—though at times he desperately wishes to escape. It’s a struggle because everything is the opposite; he craves what he shouldn’t have and feels when there should be nothing. And it’s exhausting, the effort it takes him just to tamp down the humanity Diarmuid pulls from him so softly, with every smile and kind word and gentle touch.

And though he could never hate Diarmuid—the mere thought brings a sour taste to the back of his throat—part of him hates _this._

Because loving Diarmuid makes him feel like a person, and if he is a person, then he’s a person who has done unforgivable things—and what kind of person could live with the unforgivable things he’s done?

Diarmuid drags his humanity to the surface like he’s pulling a drowning man to shore—desperate and gasping for air—against the waves, against all resistance, until David loves and lusts and _feels_ again—until the sting of salt water in his lungs becomes too much to bear, and he wishes he were back below the water, sinking into the emptiness.

He doesn’t want to be a person—he wants to be a tool, a weapon, an object.

Being a person hurts.

The pain becomes unbearable when Diarmuid kisses him one day, in their same spot, under the same tree. They’re sat beneath it, just—idling, Diarmuid picking blades of grass and David thinking desolately about how, one year ago, he would not have permitted himself this time to rest. Rest would have given him time to think, which he could not afford, and relax, which he did not deserve.

Now—it’s nice, with Diarmuid by his side. He rationalizes that it was a want of the novice, not his own.

He feels Diarmuid’s gaze on the side of his face, but before he can turn to meet it Diarmuid is on his knees, leans in—hovering, meeting David’s wide eyes, smiling—and kisses him. A proper kiss, for the first time.

Birdsong, a gentle breeze, sunlight filtering through thin clouds. David’s mind captures the moment without his permission.

“I’ve been thinking,” Diarmuid murmurs against his lips, “about you. When I’m alone in my room at night.”

He shifts into David’s lap, and David’s hands fly to Diarmuid’s waist—to keep him steady, he tells himself, to make sure Diarmuid doesn’t fall. It’s nothing to do with the way Diarmuid’s words shoot straight through his heart and move south, how his instincts betray him, how they lie and tell him this is _right._

Diarmuid presses his lips to David’s again briefly—so briefly that he doesn’t seem to notice when David doesn’t return the gesture.

He pulls back, face flushed and angelic, and David’s heart aches. He looks, for the first time, shy—David is accustomed to curious Diarmuid in moments like these, mischievous and fascinated. Now, he looks vulnerable, eyes flitting all across David’s face as though trying to find every last detail in his expression—uproot every last secret David clings to behind the stoic facade.

If he digs far enough, David knows he’ll find it—how badly he wants to touch Diarmuid, run his hands up through his hair, and under his robes, across his thighs—how every part of him suffers when he holds back—how he crushes the urge beneath his heel when he’s alone, scatters the pieces as far as he can throw them—how quickly every piece comes crawling back the moment he sees Diarmuid again.

If anyone can find the parts he hides from himself, it’s Diarmuid, with his gentle hands and adoring eyes. It terrifies him.

“I realized I’ve not been very fair to you,” Diarmuid says quietly. “I’ve been so caught up in my own excitement, I haven’t—um.”

He rests a hand on David’s thigh. His blood runs cold for a split second, before traitorously rushing to react to the touch with delirious longing. He closes his eyes and desperately tries to will it away—the fluttering in his chest, the itch in his hands, the warmth in his face and elsewhere.

Surely not. Diarmuid cannot mean what David infers.

When he opens his eyes, he finds Diarmuid—nervous, but determined. Diarmuid takes a deep, steadying breath—his eyes flicker back up to David’s for a moment. He looks back down and reaches with slender, trembling fingers for the waistband.

David catches his wrist. Diarmuid’s eyes snap back to his, startled.

“You don’t”—Diarmuid’s voice stalls anxiously—“don’t want me to?”

It’s not about what he wants, David thinks. It’s a matter of purpose—his body is for Diarmuid’s use, Diarmuid’s wellbeing, Diarmuid’s pleasure. There’s no need for reciprocation—he stomps out the mere idea before it can take root. He gently pushes Diarmuid’s hand away.

Diarmuid allows it, staring at some undefined spot on David’s chest. David watches the emotions flicker across his face like candlelight—confusion, embarrassment, hurt—before settling on a slow, eclipsing horror.

“I—I’m so sorry.” He snatches his wrist out of David’s grasp and scrambles away until he’s crouched on the forest floor at David’s feet. “This whole time I—I never even asked—oh God.” He buries his face in his hands. “Oh _God._ What have I done?”

David frowns. This isn’t right. Diarmuid’s done nothing wrong—it’s him, and him alone, who has transgressed, by allowing the thing he’s built himself to be to crumble so easily.

“I’m sorry, I just never thought you would—feel like you couldn’t be honest with me—”

Diarmuid moves his hands to push himself to stand, and it reveals his expression, frantic and far away. David feels a stone of dread settling in his stomach.

“I’ve taken advantage of you. I’ve—I _hurt_ you.” His eyes are red. “I’m sorry— _mo chara,_ I’m so sorry.”

David scrambles to stand with him. In his panic he tries to take Diarmuid’s hand, his own feelings falling secondary to reassurance—he’s misunderstanding, misunderstanding everything—but Diarmuid stumbles back a pace, looking horrified at the mere implication of touch—and is gone before he can reach him.

David’s mind reels. He sinks back in the grass, drowning, numb.

⁘

They separate for seven days, and every second of it is torture.

It’s worse than the torture of having him close. Burns harsher than salt water. There’s no solace in the empty bottom of the sea, anymore—only hollowness.

The rational part of him had always known the rigid hierarchy between him and Diarmuid was of his own making, never conveyed—that there was no possible way Diarmuid could’ve known. Still, the part of him so lost in his own mind, who’d had no one but himself to talk with, to be fully known by, for years—that part of him felt it was implicit. Surely, Diarmuid could see the plain reality, that everything David was belonged to him.

He would do anything for Diarmuid, but allow himself intimacy, adoration, affection—that was beyond David’s capabilities. David’s hands had killed and maimed and ruined, and more recently they found numb penance in hard labor. They were not made to caress, or soothe, or—arouse.

He lays in bed every night since the incident thinking about this. If only Diarmuid _understood_.

But he doesn’t. David sees the guilt on his face in passing, feels the sting in his lungs when he ducks his head like he’s praying for mercy. It’s enough to almost make David wish he’d never washed up on the shores of Kilmanaan, that he’d died in the Crusades.

Maybe once, he would’ve wished for it, but—not anymore. Not since Diarmuid snuck him his first hazelnut.

On the eighth day, David finds himself seeking idleness. Even without Diarmuid by his side, it seems, the tool he had crafted himself into remains broken. Rather than numbness, he craves—peace. 

So he finishes his work in the stables and slips away into the hills, down to a stream the monks rarely visit. He stares into the water, tumbling soft and clear, blue-green. He wishes he could see himself—wonders if he would recognize whatever stared back.

Once again, it is Diarmuid who approaches first, because Diarmuid is brave, and David is a coward.

David hears him before he sees him, careful footsteps through the tall grass. His shoulders tense—not with anxiety, but with yearning. Behind him, Diarmuid hesitates—then sits beside David at the stream’s edge. It’s another long moment before he speaks, and when he does it’s a whisper.

“I’m sorry.” He chokes on the words, and it makes David wish he had never been born. “Forgive me, I—please, if there’s any way I can fix this, please tell me, or—show me. I’ll do anything. Please, I just—” he sobs openly, wiping his eyes on the sleeve of his robe. “I just miss my friend.”

 _Friend._ David feels all the air leave his lungs. Diarmuid considers him a _friend_.

Not tool, not monster—friend.

_He is Diarmuid’s friend._

David has no tears left—had long since let them all go, back in his first year at the monastery. It was Diarmuid who had given him that strength.

Now, with Diarmuid weeping on the riverbank, yet again vulnerable in front of him with no fear, no shame—only wanting for David to respond, to reciprocate—he pushes past his own doubt, his own regret, his own self-loathing for being the cause of Diarmuid’s pain, and finds that courage again.

He cups Diarmuid’s face with a touch barely there. His hands are shaking, awaiting rejection. Diarmuid stares up at him, expression stricken, but he doesn’t pull back. David can only imagine what his own face gives away—something terrifying, something unforgivable. Why won’t Diarmuid run?

David casts the last of his fear into the sea and kisses him.

He pours everything into the kiss—his anxieties, his reverence, his shortcomings, his love—and silently begs Diarmuid to understand. Diarmuid’s hands fly to his shoulders in surprise, and there’s a muffled, hiccuped sob. David sits up, angles above him, thumbing away the tear tracks on his cheeks while Diarmuid’s fingers dig into his shirt.

“You—” Diarmuid gasps, voice still watery. He pushes David back for a moment, just to stare at him, wide-eyed. “You’re alright?”

David nods.

“I didn’t—I thought—” Diarmuid’s lower lip quivers, and he swallows. “I thought I hurt you, I thought I—”

David leans in—abruptly, almost frantically, and presses their foreheads together. One of his hands moves to cradle the back of Diarmuid’s head, and Diarmuid clings to the front of his tunic.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers. David shakes his head— _no, I am._

Their breath mingles. Their noses brush. The stream babbles, the wind whistles, the sun shines. Soft curls and softer lips. David commits it all to memory.

Diarmuid lurches forward and hugs him. Buries his face in David’s neck. David wraps his arms around him, pulls him as close as he can—because he wants to, and because he knows Diarmuid wants it, too.

Softly, Diarmuid has killed every part of the thing he had worked so hard to become. But it’s alright—something new is growing in its place. Something better, something warm and good and worthy—something vaguely shaped like a person.

Being a person hurts. But sometimes—at least now, recently, with Diarmuid—there is healing, too, in allowing himself his humanity.

⁘


End file.
